A public housing tenant was yesterday convicted in the Court of First Instance of laundering HK$6.7 billion through nine Hong Kong banks in four years.

The court heard yesterday that police became aware of 61-year-old Lam Mei-ling's money-laundering scheme when investigating a fraud complaint filed in 2008 by a citizen of the Netherlands, involving HK$300,000.

The case was shelved on legal advice when the complainant died later that year, but prosecutor Sabrina See said preliminary investigations had pointed to two bank accounts that later led police to uncover an extensive money-laundering scheme.

Lam was found guilty of dealing with property known or believed to represent the proceeds of an indictable offence. She faces a jail term of up to 14 years and a fine of up to HK$5 million when she returns for sentencing today.

After migrating to Hong Kong from the mainland in 1989, Lam on average laundered HK$155 million every month between 2002 and 2005.

Mr Justice Andrew Chan Hing-wai said he was unconvinced by Lam's account that she had received only occasional monthly payments of HK$4,500 for laundering the money.

See said Lam was arrested in 2008 after two of her bank accounts were subject to investigation over the fraud complaint. The police's attention had been drawn to suspicious activities over at least 12 bank accounts in Lam's name, and after four years of further inquiries, they found sufficient evidence to press charges.

The court earlier heard that Lam made more than 17,000 bank transfers over bank counters to funnel the funds to other Hong Kong accounts.

Each time, she would receive a phone call from a mainland woman, whom Lam knew from her home village in Dongguan , telling her money had been deposited into Lam's account and to which accounts she should divert the money. The deposits were made by cheque.

The accounts were shut down by the banks in 2005.

Lam laundered amounts ranging from HK$2 billion through Chiyu Bank to HK$124 million through National Commercial Bank. The larger sums include HK$1.8 billion transferred through Hua Chiao Commercial Bank and HK$1.6 billion through Hang Seng Bank. The other banks were Dao Heng Bank, First Commercial Bank, Hua Nan Bank, Standard Chartered and Bank of East Asia.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Guilty verdict on laundering HK$6.7b

Clearly only part of the facts has been revealed, but it appears that at least some of the money was stolen / defrauded from victims.Again, no banker was in the dock. Do the bankers, like certain of our officials, have a secret immunity from prosecution?

henry_sun Mar 12th 20139:43am

A 61 year old public housing tenant coming from Mainland in 1989...hmmm... apparently she is one of those ignorant citizens who got themselves in trouble for being stupid and a little greedy. They have no idea what they are doing.What's harming the society are not these people, but are those who used them and know exactly what they are doing. Why not go after those people? they are apparent traceable. And what about those sophisticated banks who know exactly how this money laundering scheme works but turn a blind eye to it?

All criminal prosecutions should be based on the usual beyond a reasonable doubt standard. It is completely absurd that money laundering offenses are guilty until proven innocent, considering the fact that it is such a convenient "catch all" offense. I love it that the banks get off scott free as always, and the individual gets screwed over as always.

Will.I.Am Mar 12th 20137:32am

What about the banks? Aren't they supposed to have compliance to stop such suspicious activities? Why aren't they charge at all? Since they allowed the transfer to go on for a few years!?

Sure seems like to me. As long as you have a banking license, you can turn a blind eye toward money laundering and nothing will happen to you.

SpeakFreely Mar 12th 20139:51am

Why it took so many years before the banks figuring out this is money laundering? Can u believe it? How many of these not detected or reported including those paying cash, I meant bank notes, for snapping up properties? Hk is a money laundering place I guess just no one want to talk about it...

ianson Mar 12th 20137:41am

A higher standard of proof must be introduced for these so-called moneylaundering offences. It can't be enough just to say something looks suspicious. How about proof of the commission of the underlying indictable offence on a balance of probabilities (i.e. a more relaxed standard than the usual beyond reasonable doubt standard for criminal prosecutions).